Life, 1907-04-04 · page 22 of 48
Life — April 4, 1907 — page 22: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This 1890s *Life* page satirizes two distinct targets: **"Yale Dangers"** mocks Professor William Bailey's statistical report claiming wealthy Yale students pose social risks through excessive spending on clothes, theater, and intoxicants. *Life's* editors expose Bailey's faulty logic—his statistics merely document spending differences between rich and poor students, not actual "dangers." The satire argues that restricted allowances create their own problems, and that modest extravagance among privileged youth isn't inherently harmful. **"George Washington's Devotions"** attacks a bronze relief sculpture recently installed at the Sub-Treasury on Wall Street. The sculpture depicts Washington praying at Valley Forge. *Life* ridicules this as tasteless: Washington sought private devotion away from observation, so publicly displaying his prayer violates both his character and basic decorum. The satire argues that Washington's piety needs no advertisement and that the sculpture inappropriately sensationalizes a moment of private faith for commercial purposes.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Yale Dangers — EADING in the papers under date of “New Haven, March 6,” that the danger of too liberal an allowance to students in Yale University is set forth in statistics gathered by Pro- fessor of Political Economy William Bailey, we have carefully searched the statistics quoted to find the dangers. Professor Bailey has ‘discovered that some Yale students have and spend more money than others; that students who spend less than $500 a year lavish $30 of it on clothes, and that the nine Yale stu- dents who spend more than $2,000 a year pend $500 of it on clothes. Also, that the richer students ‘‘a sh with gifts, are |: spend more on intoxicants than on to- bacco and liberally patronize the thea- tres.” Also, that “the wealthiest students spend cightcen times as much on pleasure and cighty-two times as much on tobat and intoxicants as the poorest students.” Given these figures, we are left to pick out the dangers for ourselves. One is that the young gentlemen who clothe them- selves for $30 a year may be tempted to wear celluloid shirts. Another is that the more impecunious students will be too much restricted in their experiments tode- termine the properties and proper quanti- ties of tobacco and intoxicants, and will have to defer the acquisition of informa- tion on these subjects until after leaving college. Also, that the richer students may conduct these said experiments with too much zeal, to the prejudice of their atten- tion to other branches of knowledge. The. danger of liberal patronage of the theatre depends upon the boy a shows. Hard-worked men find useful re- laxation in the theatre. Maybe hard- worked students do. To be lavish of gifts is not a serious danger provided the giver keeps within his allowance. To spend more on intoxicants than tobacco is not necessarily a mistake. To consume three dollars’ worth of tobacco in an evening is a much more hurtful indulgence than to consume a bottle of three-dollar cham- pagne, Some of the dangers we have discov cred are consequences of allowances t are too meager, but short commons hav their risks as well as cakes and ale. CO “LIFE Snough money is better fora college stu- dent than too much. It is also better than too little. We presume Professor Bai- ley would not advise any Yale father to keep his boy down to $500 or less merely for fear he will spend eight i much on tobacco and intoxicants as some other youth spends. If the father is hard- up that is another matter, . George Washington's Devotions HAT would General George Wash- ington have said if he could have seen the bronze picture of himself which has been let into the front of the Sub- Treasury in Wall Street? We believe he would have used suitable language which, very likely, would not have looked nice in print. The bronze picture is in bad taste and ought never to have been put where it is. If the General, as tradition holds, went off into the woods at Valley Forge to lay his cares and anxicties be- fore God, he went there toescape observa- tion. It was quite in keeping with his character that he should have done so, but it was entirely out of keeping with good taste or decent manners that he should have been snapshotted while so engaged. The picture records a vulgar and indefensible violation of a. privacy. Washington's piety did not need any such attestation, nor did the expediency of prayer require any such indorsement. The picture won't do Wall Street any good, and, of course, it can’t do George “MOTHER, ROSEY HIT OUR BEN! Washington any harm, but it is a mortify- ing object and wofully out of place where it has been put. ‘The proper place for it is the melting pot. Legs HILE it is perhaps a settled princi- ple of biology that disuse leads to atrophy and at length to complete sup- pression, it is by no means certain, as some are saying, that the human specie will eventually be without legs. Tailor- ing and musical comedy, to mention no others, are not to be ignored in that way. ‘True, sartorial art does not demand the perfect leg, but rather the leg which puts it to its resources, yet something in the nature of underpinning there need be. Nor is it altogether a matter of trou: A man with no means of keeping the skirts of an afternoon coat from dragging on the floor would be socially impossible As for musical comedy, it cannot stand on sawdust alone. Sawdust has tions. Contour it can give, and even wil- lowy grace, but ultimate consistency, i ner substantiality, osscous validity, these it cannot give. RS. BLANK: Howdo with your new cook ? Mrs. FRANK: Finely, Fortunately enough, her card club and mine meet on alternate Wednesdays. A PO8 pany ‘ou get along sardine. YIN THE TABERNACLE comicbooks.com